Lesson Study

A Japanese Approach To Improving Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Clea Fernandez, Makoto Yoshida

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780805839623
• eBook ISBN: 9781135644017
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Lesson study is a popular professional development approach in Japan whereby teachers collaborate to study content, instruction, and how students solve problems and reach for understanding in order to improve elementary mathematics instruction and learning in the classroom.

This book is the first comprehensive look at the system and process of lesson study in Japan. It describes in detail the process of how teachers conducted lesson study--how they collaborated in order to develop a lesson, what they talked about during the process, and what they looked at in order to understand deeply how students were learning. Readers see the planning of a mathematics lesson, as well as how much content knowledge the teachers have. They observe students' problem solving strategies and learn how Japanese teachers prepare themselves to identify those strategies and facilitate the students' discussion.

Written for mathematics teachers, educational researchers, school administrators interested in teachers' professional development, and professional developers, this landmark volume provides an in-depth understanding of lesson study that can lead to positive changes in teachers' professional development and in teaching and learning in the United States.

1

Introduction

WHY STUDY LESSON STUDY?

During an early afternoon in September 2000 we observed eight Japanese teachers as they sat around a table in their school’s staff room planning together a lesson, which was to be the initial lesson in a 12-lesson unit entitled “proportions.” In this lesson students would be exploring the idea that variables can covary and would come to see the distinction between linear and nonlinear relationships. Here is a brief excerpt from the 2-hour discussion that these teachers had on that day:

T1:		We want students to come up with examples from their daily lives. The issue is, how should we phrase the question so that students can generate varied examples? Mr. Hirano, how did you teach this lesson last year?
T3:		I used pictures… for example I showed a picture of a car on a highway. First the students came up with the notion of time and distance. But when I gave them more time, more diverse ideas came up, such as energy consumption and distance.
T1:		So the point was to use a picture to imagine a change in quantity. Okay, any other ideas? First let’s just come up with different approaches, let’s just exchange ideas.
T4:		…Students have made potato chips at school. The color of each chip is different so we could ask why the colors of these chips are different. The answers could vary form time in the oil, the temperature of the oil, etc. We could discuss how as one of these things changes, the color changes.
T1:		So how would you phrase the question: There are many potato chips, but why are the colors different?
T6:		… I think it is important to show the real thing, not the picture. It could be putting a bucket under the tap, so that they can see the change in the volume of water.
T8:		But if we bring in objects, students will want to do the experiment themselves. So if we bring objects, I think we should allow students to manipulate them. I would stick to showing the pictures like Mr. Hirano suggested. The point is simply to come up with various examples.
T1:		I find Ms. Sato’s idea of potato chips very interesting … However, strictly speaking, burned-ness as represented by color can be quantified, but it is hard. Similarly, we should avoid examples like the more homework I have, the worse I feel.
T4:		We also have to be careful that students don’t come up with linear relationships only.

On that same afternoon we could have observed many other groups of teachers in Japan having similar conversations about how to plan instruction. These conversations would have taken place in the context of an activity called lesson study, which Japanese teachers engage in to improve the quality of their teaching and enrich students’ learning experiences. Through lesson study not only do teachers plan lessons together, but they also go on to observe these lessons unfold in actual classrooms and to discuss their observations.

Only a few years ago, lesson study was almost unknown in the United States. This is no longer the case, in great part due to the success of a book entitled The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). There, authors James Stigler and James Hiebert describe the essence of lesson study and call for lesson study practice in American schools. Stigler and Hiebert set out “to convince the reader that something like lesson study deserves to be tested seriously in the United States.” Judging from the response to the book, the case has been made.¹

The recognition that U.S. teachers are likely to benefit from an activity that provides them opportunities to work together on their practice and in particular to watch each other teach is not surprising. The question now is how to move forward. We know that Japanese teachers value lesson study highly as a form of professional development—so highly that many of them can not imagine doing without it (Inagaki, Terasaki, & Matsudaira, 1988). Moreover, researchers have identified lesson study as being critical to supporting educational change and innovation in Japan (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1997).

However, little has been written about how Japanese lesson study groups function and how they organize their work. For example, how did the group referred to earlier select the lesson it was working on and what guided that decision? Even less is known about the details of what teachers do and discuss as they carry out lesson study. How typical was the conversation reproduced here? What else would a group like this tend to discuss? How is lesson study embedded in teachers’ professional lives? What are the structural and contextual elements that support and sustain lesson study practice in Japan? What is it that makes Japanese teachers consider this activity so valuable to them?²

This volume sets out to answer these questions by providing a detailed account of the lesson study work conducted by a group of teachers at Tsuta Elementary School, a public school, in Hiroshima, Japan. We describe how the teachers at this school launched, organized, and structured their work, as well as what they discussed, thought about, and struggled with as they jointly worked on lesson study. We also describe how they interfaced with the surrounding educational environment in which they conducted this work, and how they interpreted and thought about their lesson study practice.

Our purpose in writing this book is to offer American educators a rich and grounded understanding of lesson study from which to evaluate what this practice can offer them and from which to shape their own lesson study practice. We hope that this book will also offer insights about the broader issue of what it takes for teachers to learn in and from their practice. Gaining such insights is important given current efforts aimed at encouraging teachers to use their teaching as a site for their own professional learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Lampert & Ball, 1998; Mathematical Science Education Board, 2002; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Schifter, 1998; Seago & Mumme, 2002; Seidel, 1998). It is also our hope that the lesson study work that we describe in this book will vividly illustrate the complexities involved in teaching mathematics—even in the early grades. Indeed, our readers will learn about the numerous and difficult dilemmas faced by a group of teachers as they worked together on a first-grade subtraction lesson. We hope that hearing about the struggles of these teachers can serve as a reminder of the respect and support that we owe all of those who tackle the task of teaching our children. Finally, we would like this book to add to the growing number of examples that illustrate how educators in the United States, can find rich ideas in the educational practices of their counterparts abroad. Improving the quality of our schools is too important a prerogative for us to turn our backs, as we have often tended to do, on what education in other countries can teach us, particularly in this age of globalization (Chokshi, 2002).

BOOK OVERVIEW

The Organization of This Book

This book is organized into 15 chapters. In chapter 2 we provide a general description of lesson study practice in Japan. We discuss the basic steps involved in lesson study. We describe how lesson study tends to be organized, structured, and supported in most schools. We give a brief history of the development of this practice and how it came to be so widespread in Japanese elementary schools. In chapter 3 we give background information about Tsuta Elementary School, the setting for the lesson study activities that we describe in this book. We also provide a history of lesson study in the region in which this school is located and we describe the lesson study work Tsuta teachers had been engaged in for several years prior to the activities described in this book. In the next 10 chapters we describe in detail the conversations and activities that the first- and second-grade teachers at Tsuta carried out as they jointly planned, observed, revised, and retaught a first-grade lesson on subtraction with regrouping. We also describe how other teachers at the school supported and took part in key aspects of this work. We explain how the lesson study activities of these first- and second-grade teachers were related to other lesson study work carried out at the school. In particular, we devote an entire chapter to describing a lesson study open house that involved all the teachers at Tsuta. We recount how the teachers got ready for this event, what happened during this open house, and how this work was related to other lesson study work carried out at the school. In the two concluding chapters of this book we describe the mechanisms that schools like Tsuta employ to make the most out of their lesson study experiences, and we discuss what teachers actually gain from these experiences and how.

A Note on Data Sources

This book is based on observations that Makoto Yoshida carried out between October 1993 and March 1994 at Tsuta Elementary School, Hiroshima, Japan, as a part of his doctoral dissertation (Yoshida, 1999a; Yoshida, 1999b). Yoshida sat in on all the lesson study meetings and activities that the first- and second-grade teachers at this school took part in. This yielded 94 hours of observations for us to draw on, 32 of which were videotaped and the rest of which were recorded via detailed field notes.

In addition, throughout this book we refer to interviews that Yoshida regularly conducted with Tsuta teachers and administrators. The more formal of these interviews were audio taped, and in the case of more informal exchanges careful notes were taken. These interviews were carried out in order to answer questions and clarify issues that came up during the observations made at this school. For example, questions were asked about past meetings that were not observed and about the organization of lesson study at the school. Inquiries were made about the meaning of certain technical words used in the meetings or classrooms. Finally teachers were asked to discuss their reactions to certain events observed and their feelings about participating in lesson study.

In order to supplement and put in context our description of lesson study at Tsuta, we plan to draw on two other data sources collected as part of this research effort. First, throughout the book, we quote from 10 background interviews conducted with administrators from schools other than Tsuta, education officials, and a number of Japanese researchers. Second, we will also present results from two separate surveys. The first was a school survey designed for either a principal or vice-principal to complete. In this survey administrators were asked to describe what they saw as the purpose and motivation for supporting lesson study in their buildings. They were also queried about the scope and organization of lesson study in their schools as well as the support and financial assistance made available to them for doing lesson study. Administrators were also asked if they would grant permission for their teachers to receive a separate survey. This teacher survey asked teachers about the frequency and intensity with which they typically engaged in lesson study, why they did this, how they felt about doing it, and whether they encountered any difficulties in organizing and conducting lesson study with their colleagues. The school survey was mailed to all 40 public elementary schools in the western region of Hiroshima, where Tsuta is located. A total of 35 of the 40 administrators who received this survey completed it, and 22 of them granted permission for their teachers to be surveyed. Out of the 232 teacher surveys that were mailed, 129 were returned.

The year these data were collected there were 3 elementary schools out of the 40 schools within the western region of Hiroshima that were doing lesson study in the area of mathematics. Fortunately, two of these three schools, Tsuta and Ajinadai Elementary School, agreed to participate in the study. The third school declined due to opposition from the teachers, who did not feel comfortable having an outsider scrutinizing their work. Of the two schools that gave their consent, only Tsuta was planning to hold a lesson study open house that year, an aspect of lesson study that schools only engage in from time to time. Tsuta was therefore chosen as the main research site in order to be able to study the role that open houses play in the lesson study process. Nevertheless, 17 hours of observations of lesson study work were also carried out at Ajinadai. These observations have also informed the description of lesson study that we provide in this book.

Although, as we discuss later, Tsuta is in most respects a typical Japanese public elementary school, we are well aware that no school can represent a nation accurately. What we describe in this book is therefore not meant to represent modal lesson study practice, assuming there could be such a thing. Rather we offer a description of the lesson study work conducted at Tsuta in order to paint a portrait of what lesson study can be like. It is our hope that this portrait can enrich discussions about how the ideas of lesson study can be profitably used to enhance the education of students in the United States.

 

¹ For a historical account on the growing interest in lesson study in the United States, see Chokshi (2002).

² Some of the work written to date in English about lesson study includes: Fernandez, 2002; Fernandez, Cannon, & Chokshi, 2003; Lewis, 2002; Lewis & Tsuchida, 1998; Stigler & Hiebert, 1998; Research for Better Schools, 2002; Yoshida, 1999. Lesson Study Research Group’s website at Teachers College, Columbia University (http://www.te.edu/lessonstudy/) is a good place to find many recent publications related to lesson study. The website also has links to many other lesson study websites such as: Global Education Resources (GER) (http://www.globaledresources.com/), Lesson Study Group at Mills College (http://www.lessonresearch.net/), and Research for Better Schools (http://www.rbs.org/).

2

An Overview of Lesson Study

Lesson study is a direct translation for the Japanese term jugyokenkyu, which is composed of two words: jugyo, which means lesson, and kenkyu, which means study or research. As denoted by this term, lesson study consists of the study or examination of teaching practice. How do Japanese teachers examine their teaching through lesson study? They engage in a well-defined process that involves discussing lessons that they have first planned and observed together. These lessons are called kenkyujugyo, which is simply a reversal of the term jugyokenkyu and thus literally means study or research lessons, or more specifically lessons that are the object of one’s study. Study lessons are “studied” by carrying out the steps described next in an attempt to explore a research goal that the teachers have chosen to work on (e.g., understanding how to encourage students to be autonomous learners).

THE LESSON STUDY PROCESS

Step 1: Collaboratively Planning the Study Lesson

Work on a study lesson begins by teachers coming together to plan the lesson. This p...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• STUDIES IN MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND LEARNING
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 An Overview of Lesson Study
• 3 Lesson Study at Tsuta Elementary School
• 4 Illustrating the Lesson Study Through the Work of Five Tsuta Teachers
• 5 Drawing Up a Preliminary Lesson Plan
• 6 Refining the Lesson Plan
• 7 Preparing to Teach the Study Lesson
• 8 Teaching the Study Lesson
• 9 Discussing How to Improve the Study Lesson
• 10 The Revised Lesson Plan
• 11 Teaching the Revised Lesson
• 12 Sharing Reflections About the Study Lesson
• 13 Follow-Up Activities: Sharing and Reflecting
• 14 Strategies for Avoiding Isolation in Order to Enhance Lesson Study
• 15 Conclusion
• References
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Author Index
• Subject Index